Cato Daily Podcast :: Remembering Armen Alchian

Don Boudreaux discussing Armen Alchian's preference for clear prose over "mathematical pyrotechnics" reminded me of a few neural networks researchers I know. I won't name names, because it wasn't a favorable comparison. There's far too much equation-based whizz-bangery going on in some papers.

I use to think the problem was insufficient sophistication in my own math background, but I've recently heard independently from two very smart people in our Applied Math/Scientific Computing program that they also find the math in a lot of these papers to be more of an obfuscating smoke screen than a clarifying explication. If they find it hard to follow I've got good reason to believe the problem isn't just me.